Catholic clergy and parishioners began holding mass rallies at the end of last year demanding back the property near Hanoi’s St Joseph’s Cathedral.

The protests ended earlier this year when the government agreed to resolve the problem, but Catholics say nothing has changed since then.

Vietnam, a unified communist country since the war ended in 1975, has Southeast Asia’s largest Catholic community after the Philippines — at least six million out of a population of 86 million.

All religion remains under state control, but Hanoi’s relations with the Catholic church have improved in recent years, leading to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung making a landmark visit to the Vatican in 2007.